It's Banned Book Week, an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association to celebrate our freedom to read whatever we like, as long as we get it back on time.
This is even more important this year as fears of restricted personal freedom increase and as Floridians need something to do that doesn't require power.
As long as there has been something to express, there have been people ready to ban it. This was proven by the recent discovery of a fossilized, prehistoric civic group in the Olduvai Gorge ('Cavewomen Against Filth') caught in the middle of tearing down an objectionable cave wall for excessive violence and cruelty towards buffalo.
Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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"teachers have done their part through the years to make these wonderful works of literature completely inaccessible by placing them on mandatory reading lists, thus guaranteeing that no student will ever actually open these books, ever."
Ha. So true. Great stuff as usual CB.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: May 2000
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I've celebrated Banned Book Week since I was 6. It was even encouraged in my schools. (There were no banned books in my school district. The librarians exercised discretion and didn't buy Madonna's Sex book, so there was no reason to tell them not to.) Long live the First Amendment and intelligent interpretations thereof!
*goes to get out Bridge to Terebethia, a traditional read during Banned Book Week*
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America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Last year, Ron's Grandmother Fowler (the coolest Grandma EVER) sent the boys an old, hardcover copy of Little Black Sambo. It's a silly book, and I can understand why it's offensive, but because it's banned, it's also very valuable. A rare book.
If it hadn't been banned, it wouldn't be worth anything. Now it's a family heirloom. Isn't it interesting that when people want to destroy something they only succeed in making it more desireable/valuable?
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So, did I kill the thread by mentioning a banned book that people prettymuch agree SHOULD be banned?
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Actually, I doubt 99% of the US has ever heard anyone referred to as a Sambo, or a little black Sambo. So, what's the purpose of banning it? Also, why should a traditional African fable be banned because of a ignorant ducks use a term from the book for nefarious purposes?
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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A lot more people are familiar with Sambo than you realize, especially his reincarnation, Mr. Popo from the Dragon Ball series....I'm waiting for that to get banned.
Oh, and great job, but I wanted more.
More, more, more.
I know, the article would have been longer, but the editors censored it.
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I can still taste the butter in my imagination from when my grandmother read "Little Black Sambo" to me. I still have the Golden Book copy. I realize it is offensive, but I still love the story. Julius Lester wrote a modern version of it which is quite good.
Robert Cormier is another banned book author extraordinaire.
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I pay an assessment for the Library out of my property tax. In all seriousness, should I have no say in what they do with the money?
I said facetiously once that free speech doesn't apply to media that aren't free of charge. But do your words belong to you if you are being paid to say them? Or do they belong to the people paying you? Does artistic expression apply when you are just fulfilling a contract (Thinking of "Funny Lady") or churning out what pays in order to later do what you really want to (Thinking of the John Cusack character's initial dilemna in "Bullets over Broadway").
Sure it would be nice if art happened in a vaccuum without expediency. But I recall J.K. Rowling griping over having to finish one of her books by a deadline.
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Depends on your wriitng contract. But you've got a couple of different issues packed into that one paragraph. "Freedom of expression" and "author's rights" are two different things.
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Pooka, if you were the only person paying for the library out of your property tax, then you would have the right to decide what goes in it. But you are not. I am paying out of my property tax, as are all the others.
If you demand your right not to get something int he library, that curtails my right to find it in the library. If, however, it is in the library, it is not mandated that you must read it. It being in the library in no way harms you. However if it is not in the library, then I cannot read it, so I have no choice. Hence I am harmed.
The community as a whole is paying so it is what the community decides to do. Now, most communities have decided that it is too expensive to have an election over every single book that goes into the library. They elect representatives who strive to find educated people to run those libraries, including choosing what goes books are the best value and most worthy of inclusion.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote: Also, why should a traditional African fable be banned because of a ignorant ducks use a term from the book for nefarious purposes?
I'm pretty sure it's not an African fable, since it was written by a white woman living in India and the story is set in India.
Posts: 104 | Registered: Jun 2004
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I have mixed feelings on this issue. I'm not sure I agree with the word "banned." What exactly does it involve? Books that were challenged? Books that parents objected to their child reading in the 5th grade? Because there's a big difference between a school district saying it doesn't want a book in the classroom and an author not being allowed to express himself. In the USSR, books were "banned." Many objections to books in this country apply to only a certain context and age group.
You are entirely free to buy a copy of anything you want and let your child read it. You are entirely free to publish anything you want and tell other people they should read it. How is a library refusing to buy a copy of something that a majority of its patrons (or electorate, or whoever is responsible for conducting business) disapporove of infringing anyone's right? Is there a right to have any book available in a library? Libraries don't have to stock The Eye of Argon (something they object to on the grounds of quality), why should they have to stock Heather Has Two Mommies (something they object to on principle)?
Not that I don't think that the challenges to some of these books aren't silly - I've read half of them myself. However, I do support the rights of parents to make a majority decision that they don't want their children to have access to a book that they don't want that child to read. And I also don't know that I support seeking out books to read specifically because someone found them objectionable. I'd rather read a book that someone else found uplifting and had good things to say about.
It's the same principle as obscenity laws on the airwaves - we don't (or at least, we used to not) broadcast objectionable material on public airwaves. This is because anyone can access that material, with or without parental approval, and it makes it hard for discerning parents to control what their children can and cannot see.
I can see where people would take issue with this argument as well, and I'm not condemning anyone, but that's just my two cents.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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Heh. My writing teacher wrote "Heather Has Two Mommies." I hope the debate over it continues, as she makes much more money when it is in the spotlight. She is an excellent writer, and wrote that book because someone stopped her on the street in Northampton and asked her to write it. She is not primarily a children's book author, though she has a few children's books out now. (just an info insert)
Posts: 10890 | Registered: May 2003
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Um, yeah, about Little Black Sambo... It is an excellent example of what happens when people know nothing about the culture or people they are trying to write about. As a person of Native American descent, I was usually a little pissed off by the bloodthirsty Injuns in Westerns, and a little more than mildly insulted by the wise-old-indian mystique that still pervades pop culture. Even the X-Files. Remember the annual somebody-gets-stuffed-in-a-sweat-lodge-and-something-mystical-happens episode? BITE ME, CC! You SUCK.
Erm, banned books. Yeah. Anyway, I think LBS is out of print, and I'm not sad about that. Though I do think that hiding evidence of white ignorance doesn't really help anybody.
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